Thursday, 25 October 2012

One of the best pieces of "bargain" bushcraft syle camping kit available at the moment is the British army issue Gore-tex bivvy bag.

If you're wondering what a bivvy bag is it's simply a windproof and waterproof sleeping bag cover, designed to be used instead of a tent/groundsheet. They work brilliantly in conjunction with a lightweight tarp to keep any dampness from travelling up into your sleeping bag and add a little bit of extra warmth too.

I like the army issue bivvy bags as they're incredibly hard wearing and really cheap, if you shop around you can get pick up good used examples for £20-£30, an equivalent Gore-tex bivvy from a manufacturer like Rab or The North Face would set you back at least £100.

One of the things I'm not so keen on is the design of the bag, they're made to be as waterproof, and squaddie proof, as possible, and as such they have no zips or openings other than the main opening at the hood end. This means that they can be a bit of a struggle to get in and out of, especially when it's cold and wet and you're tired, exactly when you need it most. I decided to try and remedy this problem by fitting a zip to my bivvy bag, hopefully this will make it a bit easier for me to get in and out of my bivvy bag and therefore make the thing a little bit more practical to use.

The zip and the pieces of webbing that I used to reinforce/neaten up the ends of the zip, came from an old tent that was way past it's best, as did the toggle that I fitted simply to stop the zip from coming undone in the night. I'm quite pleased with how this has turned out, although I'm not sure if it's finished yet, I may end up fitting a flap to cover the zip, a few trial nights out will make that decision for me.

The zip is about half the length of the bivvy bag, plenty long enough to make it nice and easy to get in and out of the bag and short enough to leave the bottom portion of the bag still completely sealed against the elements.

A couple of pieces of old webbing were used to reinforce the bottom end of the zip......

....and to tidy up the top end ends too. I also added a toggle and elastic loop to the inside to stop the zip from coming undone during the night.

The original drawstring closure stays in place at the top of the bag but I've made it a little neater by using a cord lock in place of the original bead.

All in all quite an enjoyable and simple project that will hopefully improve an already great piece of kit for a total cost of, well nothing really, just a the cost of the thread and the electricity to run the sewing machine. Best of of all, I managed to recycle some bits of old tent that would otherwise have been thrown away, win win all round.

Monday, 22 October 2012

Over the second weekend in October this year I was lucky enough to be invited along to a weekend camp organised by Steve "Mesquite" Harrall via the bushcraft uk forum. The camp was held at a private wood in Warwickshire, not too far from Coventry, courtesy of Damian at Woodsman Bushcraft.

As well as organising the logistics of the weekend for us Steve had arranged for Paul Kirtley of Frontier Bushcraft to come and give us some tuition on axe useage and camp craft techniques. This weekend was the first time I'd met Paul, in fact it was the first time I'd received any kind of formal bushcraft tuition at all, but both Paul and his tuition were pleasant surprises.

I've met a few bushcraft instructors over the years at various events and found them generally to be a little lacking as teachers. The instructors I'd met previously generally fall into one of three categories;

There's the bushcraft bore, these types take it all way too seriously, they've obviously got a real depth of knowledge and a willingness to pass on that knowledge, they just don't appear to have any tangible personality.

Then there's the bushcraft bully, again these types appear to have quite a good depth of knowledge on the subject but that knowledge seems to have instilled in them a sense of arrogance (these are my least favourite types).

Finally there's the enthusiast, these are great people to be around, wonderful personalities, no sense of arrogance, great sense of humour, but unfortunately no real depth of knowledge or experience, this last type have usually done a course or two and gained some kind of vague qualification but just don't have an enormous deal of knowledge to pass on, I'd more than happily go for a weekend camp with these people, I just wouldn't pay them for the privilege.

As I said previously, Paul Kirtley was a pleasant surprise, he manages to combine an obvious wealth of knowledge and experience with a great level of enthusiasm for the subject, and a proficient and well considered teaching style with a sense of humour and nicely laid back attitude. In short, he came across as a person first and a bushcraft instructor second, I'd readily recommend Paul and Frontier Bushcraft to anyone looking for some formal tuition in bushcraft. He's also more than capable of staring a piece of string into submission.

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

The main project over the weekend was the construction of greenwood benches. The idea behind the construction of these benches was to demonstrate a variety of green woodworking techniques, but of course there was also the added benefit that we ended up with some nice seating to give back to Damian as a thank you for the use of his woods. The first stage in making the benches was to collect the materials that we'd need. A couple of recently fallen Beech trees (Fagus sylvatica) were selected and Paul offered some instruction in the correct method of removing the side branches as we only needed the main trunk for this project. This process is variously referred to as "limbing" or "snedding", put simply it means tidying up the trunk.

(Image courtesy of Steve "mesquite" Harral)

Once Paul had demonstrated the correct technique it was time for the rest of us to have a go, many hands made very light work of the job and in no time we had a couple of nice clean Beech trunks to work with.

(Image courtesy of Steve "mesquite" Harral)

In these two photo's you can see my mate Pete and I using a Gransfors Bruks Scandinavian forest axe that Paul had kindly provided for us to have a play with. It's a thing of beauty and I think that Pete and I both fell in love with it straight away, so if anyone's stuck for what to get me for my birthday........here's a link!

(Image courtesy of Steve "mesquite" Harral)

(Image courtesy of Steve "mesquite" Harral)

After we'd limbed out our Beech trunks the next step was to divide them up into workable sections, what we were looking for were long straight sections of the trunk with as few knots as possible to make it easier for us to split them down. We started out by using a chainsaw to section up the trunk but modern technology quickly failed us and we had to resort to good old fashioned manpower. Thankfully there were enough of us to get the job done pretty quickly and without it being too much like hard work.

The next stage in the process was to split our logs in half to start creating the seats of our benches. We accomplished this by first making "gluts", or wooden wedges, out of Holly (Ilex aquifolium) which we could then use, along with an axe, to split the green Beech along the length of it's grain. I'll probably write about making and using gluts at a later date, but for now here's a few images of us and our gluts to give you some idea.

Once we'd worked most of the larger splinters out of the seats of our benches it was time to fit some legs. These were simply pieces of Birch (Betula sp.) that were sawn to length and then fitted into holes that were drilled through the seats of our benches.

All that was left then was knocking in some hardwood wedges to the tops of the legs where they protruded from the seats to tighten everything up and hold the legs firmly in place, for this I used a couple of pieces of well seasoned Birch, other's used the Holly that we'd made the gluts from earlier,....

We got up to loads more projects over the weekend but it takes longer to write about them than do them so this little trip report's going to be in a couple of parts, look out for the next one if you enjoyed this first installment.

During a recent weekend away with some friends from BCUK, Paul Kirtley of Frontier Bushcraft took time out to give us a few hints and tips for setting up larger tarps. These larger types of tarps would most likely get used in a base camp situation, or to provide large sheltered communal areas for groups of people. One of the problems associated with using big tarps is that they can be quite heavy, especially once they get wet, so the methods that get used for setting up lightweight tarps (like this) just aren't up to the job. Heavy tarps call for a lot more load bearing ability on the ridgeline to prevent sagging and to enable the tarp to be set up tautly enough to properly shed rain. To get that load bearing ability two things are needed; a much stronger ridgeline, and a method of tying up that ridgeline that provides more mechanical advantage to provide lots of tension.

The method that Paul demonstrated is one of the best known, and has been described and illustrated extensively in the past, I just happened to have access to some pretty good photo's of Paul's demonstration so thought I'd share them.

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

The rope that Paul used for this demonstration was 11mm static kernmantel rope, the kind that cavers and tree climbers use a lot, dynamic rope (the kind that rock climbers use) wouldn't be suitable for this method as it's too stretchy. Thinner static rope would be fine, 9mm kernmantel rope has a breaking strain of over 3000kg, even with the mechanical advantage provided by the tensioning system, 3 tonnes+ still takes a lot of breaking. The karabiner is just a standard screw gate type.

One end of the rope is secured to a tree with a timber hitch. In all honesty this is a method that had never occured to me to use before but it's one that I will be using in the future as it's ideally suited to the purpose. It's really easy to tie, it won't slip under tension, it won't come undone when the tarp's flapping wildly in the wind, it won't swell up and jam when wet, and it's really easy to untie when you come to pack away, it was one of those "why didn't I think of that" moments.

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

The other end of the rope is passed once around another tree and secured and tensioned using a variation of the trucker's hitch. The first stage is to make two bights in the rope, creating an "S" shape, much like tying a sheepshank. Stage two also mirrors the sheepshank; a loop is made in the standing part of the rope and the bight of the "S" nearest to that end is passed through it, being careful to ensure that the loop is twisted in the right direction and that the bight passes through the loop from the correct side. You've now got something resembling half a sheepshank. Hopefully the images below help to clarify things a little.

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

A stick is then placed through the bight and the bight is pulled tight against it. Although not strictly necessary this provides a little extra security and helps to ensure that the hitch doesn't collapse under tension.

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

Stage three is to insert a karabiner into the bight that's pointing towards the live end of the rope, the main purpose of the karabiner is that it greatly reduces the friction on the rope whilst it's being tensioned, an added bonus is that, especially when using long ropes, it makes the hitch much simpler to tie.

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

(Image courtesy of Chris Leeland)

All that's left is to apply tension to the live end of the rope and to tie it off however you see fit. I don't have a photo of the hitch being tied off at the moment, I'll add one as soon as I can.